KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 8 ― What was supposed to be a simple trip to a mall using a carpooling service by ride-sharing firm Grab turned into a nightmare for a customer when she was sexually harassed by the driver who allegedly exposed his private parts during the drive there.
The customer, using her Twitter handle @evonne127, recounted her experience last week when using the GrabHitch service in a series of tweets detailing how she got a “creepy vibe” from the driver the moment she entered his Nissan Almera.
While GrabTaxi and GrabCar are on-demand taxi services focused on allocating the nearest vehicle to potential customers, GrabHitch is a pre-scheduled carpooling service that aims to pair passengers with commuters who are going the same way.
She said she noticed something was amiss as he kept asking personal questions and kept trying to talk to her, and when they were on the highway, he had exposed his penis.
“As we're getting on the highway, i look over and this dude had his d*** out. I was like WTF IS HAPPENING? At this point I'm panicking.
“Thank god I had my keys with me and I was holding them in my hands and I just ignored him. I wanted to get out of the car so badly,” @evonne127 wrote.
She said at that point, the GrabHitch driver kept catcalling and “whistling” at her while she pretended not to listen to him and looked at her phone.
“He kept asking me really personal sh** and at this point I just shrugged and pretended like nothing was happening i was so ready to stab him,” she said, adding that by then she had the police on her phone and was just waiting to reach her destination.
The moment they arrived at the mall, she got down and called Grab to lodge a complaint against the driver, only to be told to send them an email as the person she spoke to “did not know” what to do.
“Also, @GrabMY lol i hope you guys do something about this, because I've had enough of this bulls*** and I am tired of these things happening,” @evonne127 said in another tweet tagging Grab Malaysia's official Twitter handle.
When contacted, Grab Malaysia confirmed her account of events during the trip with the driver.
“We sincerely regret the terrible experience she had and we are glad that she reached out to us. Our team is in contact with her and and we have removed the driver from our platform,” Jaygan Fu, country head of Grab Malaysia, said in a statement to Malay Mail Online.
The statement added that Grab came about to address two major concerns in the transportation industry: safety for passengers and to improve the welfare of their drivers.
“Therefore, the safety of all our passengers are of great importance to us and we do not take anything that can potentially jeopardise their safety and their ride experience lightly, hence will do what we can to mitigate the situation.”
Grab Malaysia did not state, however, whether a police report would be lodged against the GrabHitch driver, or elaborate on what extra measures they would take besides removing the driver from their service.
The woman customer has since made her Twitter account private.
